This week Ron and Ed explored Goldratt's Rules of Flow by Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag, daughter of Eliyahu M. Goldratt whose seminal work, The Goal has been read by millions. Interestingly enough, this topic was suggested by Ron who usually falls asleep when Ed gets rolling on project management topic, so you know this episode is one to remember.
Use these show notes to follow along with the audio:
Segment one:
This is the quote Ron and Ed started the show with. You can probably tell they had fun with it. “The common belief is that if every machine is fully utilized the entire operation will be efficient.”
“I have been advocating for years that people who do software implementations should sell the project plan up front as a separate engagement.” —Ed Kless
“External customers are the ones footing the bill for everything. Not internal customers.” —Ron Baker
Segment two:
When you think about the work you can do, remember this. The more projects in the mix, the longer the lead time, which means we need to control our width.
“Multitasking is not true. You don’t multitask. You deal with multiple tasks in a serial fashion. You can’t possibly do more than one thing at the same time.” —Ed Kless
One of the rules from the Rules of Flow: “If you don’t want to get stuck, verify full kit before you get going.”
How many of you does this resonate with? From Rules of Flow: “We attempt too many projects at the same time and we pay too little attention to each project.”
Segment three:
“If you can increase the amount of time you are spending on a particular project, you are far better off.” —Ed Kless
Related to the Rules of Flow and project management… “Customer: I don’t have time to test. Ed Kless: Well, do you have time to fix it when it’s not working?”
“You always fix a problem twice. Once for the time it happens and then by thinking about what you are going to do to stop the problem from happening in the future.” —Ed Kless
“Managers and leaders shouldn’t be scheduling what people work on when. You should give them a due date, estimated effort, and let the individual decide when they are going to complete that task.” —Ed Kless
Ron and Ed mentioned Parkinson’s law on the show today. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
Segment four:
Buffer time, in project management, is the extra time added into a time estimate to keep a project on track. https://www.velaction.com/buffer-time/
The Fever Chart explained in four minutes: https://www.marris-consulting.com/en/videos/critical-chain-project-management/the-fever-chart-explained-in-4-minutes
“Queuing theory was mind numbing” —Ron Baker, more information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory
“It’s all about how you arrange the work.” —the late, great Dr. Reginald Lee
Bonus Content is Available As Well
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